I see ads like this every once in a while. This one is not too far from me, how do you tell if it's a good deal, assuming the logs aren't rotten. Is $50/ton for oak a good deal, I don't get a lot of oak and now that I'm three 3-4 years ahead I've got the time to deal with it. http://maine.craigslist.org/mat/4121155979.html
I remember BogyDave posting some things that have weight of wood listed both green and dry. I bet if you google it you could find some thing to work with.
Fresh Oak has a lot of water in it compared to other species. If paying by the ton, I'd try to take as much Ash as possible. Even then, you are looking at $100/cd which starts to get you into logs delivered here.
I don't know about the market in Maine, but that would be a very bad deal in my area. Assuming it's green oak (75% MC average), that would be about $145 per cord *green." For whole logs, that seems nuts.
Note: I edited the prices/cord above as I improved my math; sorry for any confusion. Also, I'm using 90 cubic feet/cord, which would be fairly loosely stacked. If you think in terms of tight stacking, the prices/cord would be even higher. Also, the wood will shrink as it dries and push the price/cord higher still.
Tree length around me is $125 a cord delivered if you buy the whole truck load and a mixture that will probably be mostly soft maple/birch.
Here's a handy document: Specific Gravity and Other Properties of Wood... On page 35 there's a chart of properties by genus (since we don't know specific species). The typical specific gravity of oak, green volume basis, dry weight, is .59, and the typical green MC is 75.3%. So if you take a cubic foot of green oak and dry it out completely, it will weight about .59*62.3=36.8 pounds. Green, that same chunk weighs 36.8*1.753=64.4 pounds. If a cord of wood contains 90 cubic feet of solid wood (a typical estimate) then a cord of green oak will weigh 90*64.4=5796 pounds, or 2.9 tons.
Here's one reference that show weight of dry & green cord. Chart I think it's California wood, but, "green red oak" is about 6,000 lbs (3 ton) per cord. Read the bottom, dry is 12% moisture Green weight is 40% to 60% moisture
Jon, why would you use only 90 for a cord? What is wrong with the 128 cu ft? Also, selling wood by weight to me is a very poor way to go for both seller and buyer. Stick with the normal methods of measurement. Selling by weight can be very misleading for sure. Hum, makes one think. I wonder how folks would feel if in a football game they said it is first down and 30 feet to go. Or first down and 360 inches to go....
Typically there's 85 cubic feet of wood in a 4 x 4 x 8 stack (128 cubic feet) (1 cord) . The remaining 43 cubic feet is air. 90 cubic feet of wood, is a pretty tight stack of the 128 cubic foot in a cord. Some splits stack tighter than other I stack pretty loose for the seasoning stacks. probably close to 70 cubic feet or less per cord. When stacking it in the wood shed, I stack as tight as the splits allow, probably somewhere near the 90 cubic feet per cord.
I refuse to buy wood by the weight it can be wrong in so many ways. No tree is the same ! Consider that some may be rotted inside or a little wetter maybe a little dryer than the rest. Take into account that it could be presoaked swamp timber ( a ton of that around here ) there is just to many variables.
Good point My 70 cubic feet per cord of green birch in the seasoning stack probably weighs more that the 90 cubic feet in the shed, (after 1 year of seasoning.) Better than weight, use BTU per cord
I still strongly disagree with the notion that 1/3 of my wood stack is air. While it can be true, too many have read this (more educated baloney) and have simply accepted it. For sure there is air in there and like you, most times I will stack loosely. But even in the loosely stacked piles, I do not believe 1/3 of it is air. In addition, in those stacks where we do stack loose, give it a year and it is amazing how much tighter the wood is then because of shrinkage and settling of the wood. I do wonder if this is where some have the notion of 1/3 air. That is, stack a cord of wood green. It will measure 128 cu ft but after a year there won't be that much because of the shrinkage. So if that is taken into consideration, it will have some effect. However, a cord of wood still measures 128 cu. ft so if they are measuring that after shrinkage, they do need to add more wood to it to get it back to the 128 figure. This also reminds me of a fellow who came in to our woods to cut. He really knew his stuff.... We hauled some logs out by where we had some wood stacked and I had asked a fellow to deliver a cord of wood for me. Well, MR K. I. A quickly pointed out how my stacks did not measure a cord because the ends were cribbed. Well, I had to agree with him that my stacks did not measure a cord but not for the reason he gave. What he did not know was the measurement of the stacks! He assumed the size of the stacks. I let him argue enough so that he dug a nice sized hole and only then did I give him my 30' tape measure and asked him to "help" me in measuring to make sure we had a cord of wood in our stacks. He quickly agreed and almost ran to the stacks and measured first the height and then the depth and again started arguing. It was only then that I asked him to measure the length of the stacks! Of course, he was assuming they were 8' long. As the old saying goes, when you assume, you make an a$$|u|me. That is, an arse out of you and me. Then he really got ticked. Oh, one thing I did not mention is that was the last time he cut wood on our place.
I would have to guess that he sells hardwood pulp and/or chips to a pellet maker or biomass burner and that $50/ton figures into what those markets are.
We're discussing a lot of things here. First off, whether or not it's smart to buy log length wood by the ton. I'd be a big fan of it, for the right price. Seems to me that the wood for sale at $50 per ton is about 50% over priced. I'd be all over it at $25 per ton knowing that it may have been cut yesterday. I wouldn't want it delivered with weight ticket and a "promise" that it had been sitting for a year only to find out it was just cut yesterday. Foresters and loggers pay for timber by the cord but get paid for it by the ton. There is a conversion factor and the assumption is that the logs came right off the stump so they get the most weight per cord. Paper mills don't want dry wood. When I got paid for cords of softwood pulp off of my property, I received weight tickets showing how much I sold and not receipts from someone scaling each individual log to determine the volume. As far as what is a cord and how much air space is in it, i'm of the opinion that a cord is 128 cuft stacked tightly 4x4x8 ON THE DAY OF PURCHASE. So, if someone dumps a load of firewood in my driveway, I should be able to stack it tightly and come up with a cord. I shouldn't be able to go back to them a year later and say that I was shorted because my pile shrank. If I then turn to sell that "cord" to someone else as seasoned/dry wood, the responsibility is mine to make sure I add the wood needed to get back to 128 cuft.. How many BTU's you get out of a cord will be determined by how dry it is when you burn it and what the moisture content is when you bought it. If I buy a cord of green and a cord of seasoned, and burn both at 12% moisture, I'd expect to get more BTU's out of the cord that I bought seasoned since it would have less shrinkage between when I bought it and the 12% moisture content. Here's the legal definition of a cord from Minnesota: What is a cord? A cord has a specific legal definition in Minnesota: One cord is 128 cubic feet in four foot lengths. If the wood is sawed, a cord is 110 cubic feet when ranked, or 160 cubic feet when thrown loosely into a truck. If the wood is sawed and split, a cord is 120 cubic feet when ranked, and 175 cubic feet when thrown loosely in to a truck. Minnesota Statutes, Section 239.33 Many states don't have a legal definition.. as you can see above there's a difference between 4 foot lengths, roundwood and split wood. Bottom line is know what the definitions are where you are and be a careful consumer.
I just found year old Hardwood Pulp pricing (in VT) at $27/ton paid by the middle man. (I only had to go to my files and check the rececipts on for the wood we had logged.) I believe the CL ad is a middle man so his price of $50 seems a bit out of line. Culls do not double in value.
In our area fresh cut weight wood, all hardwood, Random lengths is $20 ton. Usually delivered 10 ton at a time so one has to have a way to unload it.
